WOAW !! , one to watch out for . I like the idea of the 6inch 288 tooth worm wheels on both axis , wonder what these will cost ?, in the 2-3k area ?
Thanks Peter for the heads up .
Brian.
Should keep quite a few of the guys amused for hours
Sounds like a good mount….now if they can get one out that plays Twinkle Twinkle Little Star that would be perfect.
Seriously about time they came out with a larger mount. Wish they did a Pillow Block design, then I'd be really interested.
Matt
OK, guys, I just saw this mount in person in Tucson yesterday at the Arizona Science and Astronomy Expo. And, I spoke with the CEO of the company.
This mount will be available with full encoders on both axis with a claimed "bench measured" (his words) pec of .3 arcsec for ca $4,000.00 When I asked how can this be possible his answer was that iOptron is manufacturing and designing their own encoders in house! This could be a game changer.
Its good to see what appears to be manufacturers posting some raw data for comment to back up their mounts.
I plotted out the data at ridiculous scales ( cos i can and it shows long term trends ).
It shows ( for the pricepoint ) very smoothly changing PE but may indicate long term drifting between teeth.
Note! I have plotted this to remove drift, but when plotted raw, it does look a little odd so not sure whats really real
Wonder if they will present longer term data so we can see a bit better the underlying trends that come from the wormwheel itself.
Not a drama, as a guider will easily fix slow drift like this either way.
Now to find out what they mean by "magnetic gearing "
Maybe another new innovation.??
There is a lot more info on the original CN thread ( tho the new site format is now painful to use ), incl some data plots of the encoder units.
The tracking looked very good, but there was a hi freq ripple ( about 2 arcsec pk-pk ) due to ( what one poster who has done a lot of work on encoders states is ) an encoder integration feedback loop problem.
The beta testers have just received new boards and firmware to test with, so everyone is just in hurry up and wait mode.
I'm quite keen to see how these turn out. As it stands, my next mount was going to be an EQ8 however, the CEM60 EC sounds pretty darn nice.
Issues I am having now are trying to find out if the mount will integrate with ACP or not. The ASCOM drivers have apparently passed conform testing, but without a mount in hand, I cannot test it individually.
2 arc sec peak to peak is interesting, and as an encoder problem, given that the encoders are in house, it may be something simple for them to fix.
2 arc sec peak to peak is interesting, and as an encoder problem, given that the encoders are in house, it may be something simple for them to fix.
Based on the comments by orlyandico ( the expert on this ),
it may not be so simple, as he hit the same problem
Its a 2-3 arcsec sinusoid at about 5 seconds per wave
so hard to guide out
ref page 6 for a plot of the encoder fundamental in the FFT plot
and on page 7 is a plot of his RA data.
Superbly repeatable, but not easily fixable.
I guess it will come down to when does the ripple get bigger than seeing or the resolution of the loaded scope.
Ie at what point will it be noticeable in subs???
There is also another type, where a Brushless DC motor with high pole count needs many electrical phase changes per revolution. It's kinda loosely similar to a stepper motor, but not really.
I think ioptron would be using the type described in the video's though, but judging by the sound of the drive in the video above, it is atleast possible it is the BLDC motor type, or, possibly even a combination of both.
I think ioptron would be using the type described in the video's though,
I knew roughly what magnetic "gearing" was when i wrote my post, but couldnt see how/why it would be used in a scopes drivetrain.
Most magnetic gearing i had heard of was for heavy duty work, or had dynamic "give" in it under load, which would cause PE/tracking errors in a scopes drivetrain.
What it looks like is the the post should have said was it has "magnetically loaded" gearing. The encoder version of the CEM60 uses a bog std 1.8deg stepper, with a timing belt drive, but the worm carrier is apparently held against the worm using a magnet, not a spring. Havent seen any piccies yet tho :-(
Thanks for the link, Andrew. As you say, if it is an issue that is hard to resolve, does the 2 arc sec peak to peak, actually mean anything to the images overall.
Of course, still not a good situation if they are giving printouts of less than 1 arc second for the encoder options. Which are then not being achieved, where the non-encoder options may have no problems with guiding.
I wonder who will be stocking these in Oz. I know we have a few iOptron dealers here, but cannot find info on their sites for the CEM60.
WOAW !! , one to watch out for . I like the idea of the 6inch 288 tooth worm wheels on both axis , wonder what these will cost ?, in the 2-3k area ? 
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